Silent students should either speak up or get out

October 23, 2006 —

You are sitting in class. Your professor prompts: What do you think of the war in Iraq? Your classmates raise their hands: "We shouldn't be over there." "It's stupid." "I think we should bomb the whole country." "We're just trying to give them order."

Is your hand up? If not, why?

This has nothing to do with the war in Iraq. I could have just as easily used gay marriage or abortion or something equally as controversial. I am addressing whether you respond or sit there and why.

I have been at Saginaw Valley for five years now and through countless classes. One of the saddest things I see happening at this institution is my peers sitting quiet in classes based around discussion. And I question, why are you here?

I have an understanding of what a university represents and how it operates. We have previous knowledge and take lecture classes to gain new knowledge and use these in conjunction with each other to create new ideas, concepts, thought processes, etc. We then take classes that challenge these ideas and concepts. These challenges require inquiry, discussion, and application of all of this previous knowledge within and outside of classes so that our base knowledge is either justified or modified.

If this idea somehow deviates from your own of the university setting, I would suggest you are missing something. If you are not here to broaden your horizons and become more knowledgeable, what is the point?

Furthermore, how can you become more knowledgeable in a subject if you sit silently in a class while the professor prompts a discussion somehow related to course material? Or worse yet, how can you sit silently in a class with your own thoughts on a subject and feel that they are either unworthy or unneeded?

Somewhere along the line, people have lost touch with the idea that they can better themselves through discussion and debate. I find it even more discouraging that there are those that are so myopic that they will disengage from discussion or debate because of it. How do these people expect to get through life? By constantly surrounding themselves with like-minded individuals?

I have had people suggest that they do not talk in a discussion based course because of those that talk too often. I know I am one to make my voice heard in such classes, but I do so for two reasons.

One, no one else is (or not many are). Two, I am trying to get those silent individuals interested enough to start talking. I do not "love the sound of my own voice"- as one of my friends once said. I want to hear other people's ideas because I feel that it will add a different level to the discussion or take the discussion somewhere more interesting.

I am perplexed by those that sit there and do not contribute. Perhaps they have not read the material, but even then, that does not explain why they remain silent for the duration of a course. Do they never read the course material? That in itself allows for ridicule.

I am tired of my silent peers. I know they have opinions and thoughts when class discussion is going on, but if not--if they are sitting there absent-minded, dozing, daydreaming, etc. without any opinion on what is being talked about, then they (or you if you are one of these individuals) need to reconsider their choice of being here.